All I Want For Christmas
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Michandrea AU. Sometimes you don't know what you want until you do.


**AN: This was a tumblr request for a Michandrea Christmas fic. I meant it to be warm and fluffy. I'm not sure that it is. I think it's a little all over the place, but it's what happened, so it's what I have to offer.**

 **I hope that it's something like they wanted. And I hope anyone who reads, enjoys. Let me know what you think!**

 **By the way, I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

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Working late on Christmas Eve. It was an abomination. It had to be. Admittedly, Andrea had never scoured the Bible, but she was sure that it was in there somewhere. Though shalt not work late on Christmas Eve. Yet, regardless of the risk of each and every one of them being smote, the whole office was working late.

Andrea could see some light at the end of the tunnel, though. Slowly she was working her way through the information that she had to enter in the computer. She wasted, admittedly, more time than she should by picking up the pile of what she had left to enter and measuring it against what she'd already done. Technology was both a helper and purely evil. It was working against her and everyone else. The day before, their entire system had crashed. Some virus had crept in and wreaked havoc. It had ended up causing the technical people to do some kind of reset of their computers and that had, unfortunately, wiped out piles of things that had never been moved to backup—as well as everything that had been moved to backup.

Spread out around the office, people were hustling. Some were restoring the files they had saved, some were searching for the trusty paper copies of things that were missing, and some were dedicated to simply figuring out what they'd lost. Andrea was in charge of painstakingly re-entering everything they brought her in paper form.

There were only a few of them left at this point. Those with children and families? They were already out the door. They'd been excused from this disaster because there were people waiting on them. They were important. Those who didn't have those things? Their time wasn't important.

Andrea growled to herself. She didn't know why she was feeling particularly bitter. It wasn't as though she had any grand plans that had been cancelled. If she'd gone home on time, she'd probably have called her sister for a few minutes, grown irritated from hearing about her life, and then she'd have settled herself on the couch in her pajamas to cry into a bottle of wine over the fact that her Christmas Eve was more depressing than even that the Grinch suffered up on Grinch mountain.

Maybe that's why she was feeling particularly bitter. Maybe it wasn't missing Christmas Eve at all that had her shook up. Maybe it was just the common malaise that came over her with the "joyous" holiday season and now she finally had something to point at and blame for all of her problems that were there anyway.

Andrea buried herself in what she was doing, deciding to choke out the sounds of her own voices with her focus on work that she didn't really care about right now, and only noticed the passing of time when a knocking noise broke her thoughts again. She'd been working almost like a machine herself, and the first thing she noticed was the significant shrinkage of her pile of information. The second was Phillip Blake standing near her desk with his coat over his arm. He smiled at her.

"I didn't mean to startle you," he said.

"You didn't," Andrea responded, not sure if it was true or not.

He laughed to himself.

"You jumped," he said.

"You knocked on my desk," Andrea responded.

He held his hands up in mock surrender.

"We're throwing in the towel," he said. "Giving up. We'll go at it on Thursday. After Christmas."

Andrea nodded her thanks for informing her of the situation, but then she glanced back at the pile of work on her desk.

"I'm just going to finish this," she said.

"It's late," he pointed out.

"And I could be done quicker if I weren't having a conversation," Andrea said.

Philip Blake had been somewhat interested in Andrea for a good deal of time. She wasn't interested in him, though. There was something about him that was simply _off-putting._ He was handsome. He was charming. He said nice things all the time, but he was just off-putting. There was something artificial to his kindness. And—besides that—Andrea simply didn't have an interest in him. Despite the fact that her mother held tight to the belief that one day she'd meet a nice man and settle down, Andrea wasn't so sure that's how her story would go. One thing she was pretty sure of, though, was that if she were to meet a nice man and settle down, that man wouldn't be Philip Blake.

And he looked slightly offended by her words, but he covered it quickly with a smile and studied the far wall for a second before he nodded and hummed.

"Well if you change your mind..." he started.

"Merry Christmas," Andrea said, cutting him off. Another nod and he left, tossing back a holiday greeting in her direction.

Andrea turned back to her work, but it only took a fraction of a second before she sighed and growled to herself, throwing herself backward in her office chair so that it rocked. He'd broken whatever magical concentration she had before. He reminded her that she had nothing going on tonight. He reminded her that, at best, she'd leave here and maybe drop by a bar to have a drink with the people who had absolutely nothing else going on for the holidays.

But no matter what, she'd be finishing this on Thursday. She wasn't getting anywhere else with it tonight. She stood up and straightened her pile. She organized a few things on her desk and then she closed out her computer. She took her time gathering together her bag and the few trinkets that had been given to her as gifts from office mates. She wasn't even sure, at this point, if she was the last one there.

Her question was quickly answered, though, in the form of the creaking floor boards from the back part of the office. Michonne rounded the corner, briefcase in one hand and coat thrown over her arm, and she looked at Andrea in a half daze.

"I thought I was the last one," Michonne said.

Andrea smiled.

"Me too," she said. "Actually—I thought you left hours ago."

Michonne laughed to herself.

"Hours ago," she mused. "I've hardly ever left here when there was anyone else still here. Why start now, right?"

"No plans?" Andrea asked.

Michonne shrugged her shoulders.

"My parents are two hours from here," she said. "I might go see them tomorrow but..."

She didn't finish and she didn't have to. Andrea nodded knowingly. She might go see them or she might not. Going to see them would mean spending the holidays with family, but it might also mean spending the holidays with conversation that she didn't feel like having. It was hard to figure out, sometimes, if it was better to be accompanied or alone. The raising of Michonne's eyebrows in question made Andrea realize that she'd missed something and she quickly asked for Michonne to let her know what it was.

"Do you?" Michonne asked, clearly indicating that she was repeating herself. "Have any plans?" She clarified.

Andrea shook her head.

"Just—home," she said. "A bottle of Cab."

"I don't suppose you'd..." Michonne started, but she shook her head. "Merry Christmas," she said, indicating that whatever she was going to say was something she was passing directly over.

"Yes," Andrea said, feeling her heart do a strange skip in the normal rhythm of its beats. "Yes—I'd love to—do something?"

She felt like she was taking a chance. Maybe that wasn't what Michonne was going to say at all. Maybe she'd put her on the spot. Maybe she should take it back and just offer the standard holiday greeting that would send them both in different directions. But it was out there now, in the universe, and there was no taking it back.

Michonne looked struck, perhaps because Andrea was so straightforward with her acceptance of an offer not even made, but she quickly recovered.

"Are you ready to go?" She asked, not bothering to clarify where it was that they might be going. Andrea nodded, switched off her desk lamp, and gathered up the last of the things that she was pulling together.

In the parking lot, it didn't take them long to agree that, since neither of them had a real plan in mind, they might as well do something that was spontaneous. Michonne, not being a very spontaneous person in general, left the planning up to Andrea and agreed to meet her, in half an hour, at the park downtown where the Christmas lights would be left burning all night—even if there was nobody there to see them except for the two of them.

And Andrea set off to change her clothes and to get what she needed.

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An abandoned park full of twinkling Christmas lights whose artificial warmth inspired some holiday spirit, and some wine quickly disguised in juice bottles that Andrea put together in the parking lot while Michonne laughed at her high school ingenuity, and it wasn't a bad Christmas Eve after all.

They walked, for some time, without anywhere to go or anywhere to be. Michonne talked about her family and Andrea avoided talking about hers, even though she felt many of the frustrations and annoyances that Michonne counted out as she discussed not wanting to go there because it always felt, in some way, like it was her against the world.

Andrea talked about work related stress and Michonne seconded it. Even though they worked very different jobs at the law firm, and even though Andrea was still studying "to move up in the world," they shared the same common experiences of coworkers and the frustrations of having a boss that seemed to think that there was nothing to them besides their productivity. At the end of the day, when they went home, their boss seemed to simply believe that they ceased to exist. They were little more than robots churning out profit.

That's what Michonne had said. She felt like a robot. She was only as good as her next case. She was only as worthy as the next win.

"But you're not a robot," Andrea said, gesturing toward one of the wooden benches. Michonne took Andrea's lead and went to sit.

"I'm not," Michonne said. "Or—at least I don't think I am. It's been so long since I felt like anything else, maybe I've turned into one."

Andrea laughed to herself.

"Sometimes—you lose yourself in what everyone else wants," Andrea said.

Michonne looked at her and shrugged, but Andrea could tell that it was a shrug that was simply there to keep her from having no response at all.

"We all do it," Andrea said. "We lose ourselves. There's—what does my boss expect? There's—what do my parents expect? There's—how do I measure up against my little sister who has everything together and everything she touches turns to gold?"

Andrea sighed.

"Am I good friend if I don't take this call at three in the morning because she's having _another_ crisis?" Michonne offered.

Andrea laughed.

"Am I a bad friend because I don't care enough about all of her problems? Why haven't I called in a week?" Andrea continued.

Michonne hummed.

"Maybe the caring at all is the only proof that I'm not a robot," she offered with a snort.

Andrea nodded and swallowed before she covered over her own feelings with a long drink from the bottle that had once contained nothing more than dollar grape juice she'd purchased at one of the all-night gas stations.

"So what do you want?" Andrea asked.

Michonne hummed in question, focusing her attention, too, on her beverage.

"If we lose what we want in what everyone else wants—what do you want?" Andrea asked.

"It's been so long since someone asked me that," Michonne said after a moment, "that I'm not sure I know. Do you?"

Andrea thought about it and shrugged.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Chances are, if I got it, I wouldn't want it anymore." She laughed to herself at the sound of her own truth ringing in her ear. "But—for now? I have to admit, this is kind of nice."

Michonne looked around at the lights around them and she looked back at Andrea. She smiled at her and there was a slight nod of her head.

"It is," she agreed. "Except..."

"Except?" Andrea repeated, prompting her to continue.

"It's almost Christmas," Michonne said. "And tonight? It's almost over. Tomorrow, what?"

Andrea swallowed and looked around a second to distract herself from her own thoughts. It was almost Christmas. And maybe, whatever it was that was happening here, whatever it was that she was feeling—and that she hoped Michonne was feeling—was nothing more than something coming off the intoxication that was supposed to come with holidays. Maybe it was nothing more than a knee-jerk response to the feeling of holidays done wrong and gone wrong.

Maybe, tomorrow, it would all be gone and it would all be different.

Andrea leaned forward, taking a chance that made her heart thunder in her chest, and she brought her lips quickly and softly to Michonne's. The woman didn't respond at first and Andrea stayed right where she was. Michonne wasn't responding, but she wasn't pulling away—and Andrea could be patient. It paid off because, when the shock wore off, Michonne returned the kiss with more enthusiasm than Andrea might have even imagined. When they broke apart, it was Andrea that pulled away. She didn't try to hide her smile.

"It's not tomorrow yet," she offered quietly. "I think I know what I want for Christmas now. And—I wouldn't mind waking up to something nice on Christmas morning. Or _someone_ nice."

Michonne was visibly nervous. Andrea wasn't sure, though, if it was just the situation that caused the jitters or if it was simply that she wasn't feeling what Andrea was feeling and she wasn't sure how to get out of it and still maintain her friend status.

"If you want," Andrea offered, hoping to give Michonne some kind of escape.

Michonne nodded, hesitantly at first, and then with some force behind it.

"I think I know what I want for Christmas too," Michonne said. She stayed where she was a moment, still not seeming one hundred percent sure of things, but when the doubt seemed to pass, she got to her feet and showed her surety by outstretching a hand in Andrea's direction. Andrea took it, and she didn't object when Michonne slipped her arm around Andrea's shoulder and walked with her back in the direction of the parking lot.

Whether the next Christmas would find them the same way—or even the next week—remained to be seen, but for now, they both knew exactly what they wanted.


End file.
